"The cloud changes everything," said Kevin O'Toole, the senior vice president and general manager of new business solutions for Comcast Business Services, in his keynote here. "It's transforming how businesses consume IT services."

The unit's first big moves into the cloud is Business Voice Edge, a hosted PBX service that is partly born out of Comcast's acquisition of New Global Telecom. For that, Comcast is supplying the modem, the router, the firewall and the phones. Everything else, including the supported apps and services, resides in the cloud. (See Comcast Rolls Business Voice Into the Cloud.)

Comcast hasn't revealed how many customers have signed on for Business Voice Edge, but the product is becoming increasingly popular with multi-site businesses, O'Toole said.

But the popularity for cloud services is also driving up demand for more bandwidth -- something that Comcast is addressing with its Docsis network and with its newer, fiber-fed MetroE platform that is being used to target larger business customers. "Small businesses need bandwidth that a T1 and copper can't provide ... and they need it right now."

Growing business revenues
Comcast is tying those pieces together as revenues in the business services category continue to climb at a rapid rate, now representing 26 percent of the company's total cable revenue growth. The MSO pulled in $621 million in business services revenues in the third quarter, putting it just shy of an annual run-rate of $2.5 billion, up from $1.9 billion at this time last year. (See Cable's Cut of the Biz Services Pie to Eclipse $7B .)

Comcast started off by serving small business users, but has since deployed Metro Ethernet into more than 20 markets to help it pursue businesses with between 20 and 500 employees, a group that includes area hospitals, school districts and government customers. That mid-market section now represents about 15 percent of the group's revenues. (See Comcast Makes Hay With Metro Ethernet .)

"Metro Ethernet is the center of gravity" for this mid-market group, O'Toole said.

When all targeted business sizes are factored in, Comcast sees business services as a $20 billion to $30 billion market opportunity. "We're about 10 percent penetrated in that opportunity. We've got a lot of room to run," O'Toole said.

A good debate at the event dug into the discussion about&nbsp;whether cable, despite some recent efforts and buys, is 'behind' on their cloud strategies. We'll have more on that later today, but the cable guys, obviously , think they're pretty well-positioned for how they will target their particular corner of this market. JB

The Ethernet over coax revelation is interesting. Did he provide any details about who's buying it, what speeds they're buying, etc? Seems like it would mostly target small to medium businesses that aren't in metro centers.

I'll see what i can find out in terms of flavor and customers they're getting with it so far... but as flavor goes, my guess is it's gotta be an Ethernet-over-Docsis implementation.&nbsp; The speeds will obviously be less than what Comcast can deliver with the fiber-fed MetroE product, but the other feature sets should be pretty much aligned&nbsp;(actually Kevin O'Toole did get into that a bit in my LRTV interview with him, which will post on Monday).&nbsp; JB

The New IP is actually bigger even than business. Like another hugely important tech that Light Reading is digging into right now, the New IP has the potential to change the world by fundamentally advancing what it is possible for people to achieve with communications.

Mobile broadband is changing our lives. It's reshaping the Internet, industry, and society. It allows us to freely connect with one another anytime, anywhere. At this year's Mobile World Congress, Huawei will share its latest insights and newest ideas and technologies that will shape the future of MBB. They will showcase their end-to-end MBB solutions that will ...

A new digital revolution is leading us to a better connected world. Together with millions of digital partners, Huawei will help CSPs to build their digital service ecosystem and aggregate a wide variety of digital services. In this video, we find out how Huawei is going to help CSPs implement digital operations.

This year's Big Telecom Event (BTE) in Chicago is going to provide more opportunities than ever for networking, getting to grips with key industry challenges and opportunities and, equally as important, having some fun.

On Sunday March 1, 2015, Light Reading will host an ICT Leaders Roundtable in partnership with Huawei. At this half-day event, CIOs, analysts and researchers will discuss key industry trends like virtualization in the cloud with a specific focus on new business models. Located at the luxurious Renaissance Hotel near the Fira Barcelona, space is limited so please ...

In December 2014, Light Reading gathered telecom executives in Reykjavik, Iceland to discuss their vision for high-capacity networks through the end of the decade. The intimate, interactive meeting was set against the backdrop of Iceland's spectacular natural beauty. As one of the event's founding sponsors, Brocade's Kelly Herrell shared his company's strategy at ...

In December 2014, Steve Saunders sat down with Brocade VP of Software Networking Kelly Herrell at Light Reading's 2020 Vision executive summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. They spoke about Brocade's approach to the New IP, the future of the telecom industry, and more.

Mobile broadband is changing our lives. It's reshaping the Internet, industry, and society. It allows us to freely connect with one another anytime, anywhere. At this year's Mobile World Congress, Huawei will share its latest insights and newest ideas and technologies that will shape the future of MBB. They will showcase their end-to-end MBB solutions that will ...

A new digital revolution is leading us to a better connected world. Together with millions of digital partners, Huawei will help CSPs to build their digital service ecosystem and aggregate a wide variety of digital services. In this video, we find out how Huawei is going to help CSPs implement digital operations.

In the digital age, network experience has become the primary productivity especially for telecom operators. In this video, Wenshuan Dang, Huawei’s Chief Network Architect, discusses how carriers can tackle the challenge of infrastructure complexity in order to enhance business agility and improve user experience.

What's making policy control strategic in 2015 and beyond? Amdocs talks with Heavy Reading's Graham Finnie about the key factors driving change in the data services landscape. Find out what his policy management research reveals about the road ahead for policy control – and sign up for

Check out Light Reading's interview with Jay Samit, the newly appointed CEO of publicly traded SeaChange International Inc. With a resume that includes Sony, EMI, and Universal, Samit brings a reputation as an entrepreneur and a disruptor to his new role at the video solutions company. Hear what he had to say about the opportunities in video, as well as the outlook for cable, telco, OTT and mobile service providers.